Midsummer's Night

As it always is with summer, I usually don’t know what day it is. I finally looked at a calendar to find out the day and turns out, yesterday was the day after the American Father’s day, but not only that, it was the summer solstice. In France, all the cities take advantage of the longest day of the year and have a grande fête de musique. Local bands play in every corner of the city, all different types of music- jazz, blues, metal, techno, rock, or chanson just hangin out together from one medieval street to the next. And if that wasn’t already dizzying enough, there’s capoeira and African dancers moving bodies like acrobats to huge African drums, and even some shirtless men spewing lighter fluid up into the air, playing with fire and scaring old ladies.

One band played “I shot the sheriff” and even though their next line was a little off, “but I did not shot the deputy,” I thought they were definitely the best show. But words, especially properly conjugated verbs don’t always matter in music. Trying to interpret French accented English through put-on accents is just another level of entertainment for an English teacher. An impersonation of a southerner or a black man by a five-foot-three, balding Frenchmen who thinks of foie gras as a standard appetizer, is amusing to me. But I was happy to drink cheap beer in plastic cups and listen to live music again just like the old Sewanee days. Plus there was the joyful scene of adorable little children hand-in-hand dancin and runnin around just in front of the band, right there with the drunken uncoordinated hippie youths and the smell of splifs in the air. Good night.